Original Episode
by Random Guise
Summary: Truman Burbank made it out of the filming set/village that was Seahaven and joined the real world. But it wasn't an easy transition, and just what *was* the real world anyway? I don't own these characters, and I've visited a few convalescence facilities before.


**A/N: Follow up to the 1998 movie "The Truman Show".**

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Original Episode

"You don't have to stay in jail with me" Truman Burbank said as he stroked the cheek of the woman that sat with him on the edge of the bed.

"It's not jail, and you know it" Sylvia Glodsk smiled as she put her hand against his, pressing it more firmly to her face. "It's a convalescence facility; most of the people here are recovering from surgery or an illness. You're recovering from isolation."

"Yeah," Truman scoffed "isolated - if you call growing up with a bunch of actors and being watched by millions as being isolated. If it's any consolation I guess the actors got older too; they had to live _their_ parts. When I think of Meryl..." he shuddered, unable to finish the thought of the actress who had played his wife and whose real name was Hannah. He couldn't conceive of what it must have been like to voluntarily pretend for such an...intimate...part for so many years.

"Then don't. Just think of us; I was an actor too, remember - even if it was just a bit part."

"Yeah, but you tried to tell me it wasn't real. If you had played along..."

"...then you _still_ would have been with Meryl. I wasn't part of their planned future for you."

"Maybe you could have married 'Marlon' then" Truman said, using air quotes around the name with just a bit of a sneer. The actor's real name was Louis but he had played the part of Truman's friend since they were both young. _Everyone_ had played their parts for years if they weren't moved off the show by one means or another - like the man that played his father.

"I never even met Marlon, either on the show or off of it. Besides, Marlon wasn't the one that remembered my face after all those years I was gone."

"How could a sane man forget a face like that" he said, tilting his head slightly as he stared at her and framed her head with his hand like a camera. Playfully she pushed him away, both laughing. "But why do you stay here with me? It can't be the food; maybe...you have something going on with Wilson in Room 14 and you're just waiting for me to fall asleep! Don't deny it! There's something about the way he moves that new prosthetic in physical therapy..."

"I've never seen that man before in my life; besides, I like men with two legs. But I don't have anything else to do but stay with you, and that's all there is to it."

"What about laundry?"

"Well," she bit her lip "I did leave a bit of that at home. On your next field trip we'll visit my place and you can help wash it, if the hazmat team hasn't already removed it from the premises. Won't that be fun?" She scrunched up her face to show her disdain for soiled clothes. "Real life isn't as much fun as you think."

"I know" Truman readily agreed. "Back...there...I was an insurance salesman. I should have known something was up; no one _ever_ turned down my sales pitches; I had some people just come up and ask to buy insurance. Out here you can't help but be bombarded by ads for insurance; everything is just so much more competitive. Let's face it; in there I was almost like a god..."

"_Don't say that!_" Sylvia interrupted. She tried to cover quickly with "Christof tried to be that; you're just normal, everyday Truman."

"Something's bothering you" Truman said slowly. "What is it?"

"Me? Nothing."

"Yeah, right. No, something IS bothering you, I know it; you can tell me. It must have been something I said; now let me think..."

"I can't."

"Oh, did someone tell you not to talk again? Are we on camera now?" Truman looked around, pretending to look under the pillow and telephone beside his bed.

"No, it's not that. But it was hard enough to make sure you didn't get paranoid from everything around you out here. I mean, _everyone_ knew who you were. Are, I mean. You couldn't be anonymous if you wanted to be. But there's something that's come up that is...well...kind of weird. I really don't think you need to hear about it right now."

"In that case, I guess I _will_ have to hear about it right now. Unless you want me to just walk out of here and take my chances. I can, you know - I'm here voluntarily. I'm pretty close to getting up to speed on the world, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of it."

"I think you should; I'd like to see it with you. But you haven't been exposed to some things, and others might take advantage of you."

"From what I understand, people get taken advantage of every day so that wouldn't be strange."

"No, but...not everyone has a religion based on them."

"No, I don't suppose...what?" Truman's face made a big shift from happy to confused. "What did you just say?"

"Well, somehow or other there's a small movement of people that...uh...kind of started a religion on you. Maybe not a religion" she corrected herself "but more like a...I don't know...world view maybe? They take your life and then try to apply it to themselves."

"So they're all insurance salespeople? That's depressing."

"No!" She laughed, but quickly sobered. "No. I've read a little about them, of course, because of you. They're just...a little weird."

"How? Do they hop into the car on Sundays and drive down to the Church of Truman for services?"

"Of course not. They talk on the internet; I've told you what that is."

"Yeah" Truman remembered. "There was nothing like that where I grew up; at least not that I know of."

"It's only becoming more available to a lot of people for the past few years, but they kept it off the island so you wouldn't find out things. But people from all over the world can talk and discuss on it, and this group of people I'm talking about think the world doesn't make sense unless it's like yours."

Truman looked blankly at Sylvia, trying to understand. "They want to be in a reality show too?"

"No, not quite. They think that they _are_ in a reality show, in a way. That all of this" she said whirling her arms around "is a show. That someone, or something or some things, are watching us all the time."

"Oh really? I can't possibly conceive of such a thing" Truman mocked. Sylvia was about to push him again when he broke a smile "Just kidding, obviously. What are these other people supposed to be watched for? Some alien TV show?" He pretended to be some type of fish creature with gills as he intently stared at a television.

"They don't even agree. There are doctors that think it's just some people's paranoia that is manifesting itself, trying to find an outlet and make sense of everything."

"Okay, so I'm not a god, I'm more like...a patron saint!" Truman declared. "I wonder if I can get the merchandise deal on that."

"Please don't; some of them are touchy enough as it is. But if they knew where you were I bet some would try to get in here and talk to you like you had all the answers to life and what it did or didn't mean."

"My answers are wrong, thanks to being raised in a fishbowl. But wait...maybe they have a point."

"What?"

"Think about it, Sylvia. Maybe I was just the experiment _within_ the experiment. Maybe somebody was studying everyone's reaction to _me_." He grinned. "Makes you think, eh? Then somebody could be studying them and somebody could be studying the beings that are studying them and then..." he continued in an increasingly mocking voice.

"Stop, okay you made your point. But how would you tell?"

Truman had thought about this before, in the context of his own life after he had walked through that door off the set. "Reasonably speaking, you couldn't tell one way or the other unless there was an equivalent of that light that dropped practically on my doorstep. Maybe you just have to smile at the camera, or whatever thing they call it, and say 'Hi!' and move on with life." He started saying 'Hi' to various random objects in the room. "There, that should enough for now. And if no one is out there, then we'll just leave everyone else around us wondering just what the hell we're doing."

He took Sylvia's hands in his. "I'm not going to waste my time on that subject any longer; I hate reruns, I prefer original episodes like us - call me crazy. Instead" he said with in impish grin "I'm going to waste my time with you!" Sylvia screamed in delight as he grabbed her and pulled her up before spinning them both around the room. "Tell me," he whispered in her ear "have you ever been to Fiji?"

The End

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**A/N: Jim Carrey in one of his first straight roles, although it did have some wry humor in it as well as possible philosophical discussion points. Regardless, it was entertaining - in a meta sort of way as the movie "The Truman Show" was supposed to be an entertaining story about a television program called "The Truman Show" which was an entertaining...**


End file.
